2011-11-08
Police threatened Byron Sonne with a jaywalking ticket 10 days before the summit in order to learn his identity and gather information about him, Sonne's lawyers argue. The interaction was caught on video by a surveillance camera inside a police cruiser.
Peter Small and Brendan Kennedy Staff Reporters
A Toronto computer consultant says police on the lookout for G20 security threats illegally tricked him into talking and used deceptive information to search his home, exposing his private life in a “brutal and abrupt manner.”
Police misled a judge when they filed affidavits seeking search warrants for his house and family cottages, Byron Sonne says in arguments filed Monday on the first day of his closely watched trial.
“His fundamental right to be free of state interference was disregarded at the moment of his first contact with the police,” his lawyers state.
Sonne, 38, is challenging most of the evidence against him as gathered in violation of his rights to consult a lawyer and as breaching protections against unreasonable searches and arbitrary detention.
An Internet security expert, he was dubbed the G20 geek and spent nearly 11 months in pre-trial custody — longer than any other G20 accused — before being released on bail last May.
When he arrived at the University Ave. courthouse Monday morning he said he was excited to have his day in court.
“You’ll be able to actually hear the evidence against me,” he said.
Minutes later, he pleaded not guilty in Ontario Superior Court to four counts of possessing an explosive substance and one of counselling mischief not committed.
On June 15, 2010 police questioned him after he was seen videotaping the G20 security fence in the financial district.
Although he asserted his right to silence, police officers threatened him with jaywalking as a ruse to compel him to identify himself, argue his lawyers Peter Copeland, Kevin Tilley and Joseph Di Luca.
Sonne complied.
“There was a concerted effort by police to subvert a basic exercise of constitutional rights,” Di Luca told Justice Nancy Spies on Monday.
“This was indicative of a pattern of issues in this case.”
Crown prosecutor Stephen Byrne conceded that Sonne was illegally detained, but later in the interaction than the defence claims, making what he told police before that admissible.
“He was aware of his rights, free to go at any time,” Byrne argued.
Sonne posted on Twitter about his brief detention: “cops were polite enough, but they threatened me with (a Highway Traffic Act) violation for walking in the road to videotape, beware of this trick.”
He was put under surveillance and arrested on June 22, 2010.
He was denied access to a lawyer for 12 hours but interviewed by two intelligence officers at length, his lawyers say.
They assured him his statement would not be used against him, but it was used “to further an unlawful search of his house,” his lawyers add.
“The search of his home and cottage invaded his privacy and constituted an affront to his basic human dignity, exposing corners of his private life in a brutal and abrupt manner.”
The Crown countered in written submissions that excluding the evidence would bring the administration of justice into disrepute.
Intelligence officers uncovered Sonne’s Internet blog and postings on Twitter and Flickr sites.
On Flickr were recent photos of police officers, the security fence and security cameras. One Twitter post described a possible means of damaging the fence. Another asked for a photo of a G20 security pass.
The search of Sonne’s home uncovered an amateur laboratory and workshop with chemicals, some of which could be used for explosives.